Browsing by Author "Ulrich, Gary J."
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- An empirical investigation into differences between companies that elected an early compliance with SFAS 52 and companies not electing an early complianceBrown, Betty Coffee (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1985)The latest foreign currency translation standard, Statement of Financial Accounting Standard No. 52 (SFAS 52), promulgated in December of 1981, was issued in response to harsh criticisms of its predecessor, Statement of Financial Accounting Standard No. 8 (SFAS 8). Large foreign currency translation gains and losses, resulting from the use of the temporal translation method, were required to be reported in net income under the al1—inclusive income concept mandated by SFAS 8. In contrast, SFAS 52 adopted the functional currency approach whereby companies whose functional currency is the local currency are required to use the current rate method, generally resulting in only minor translation gains and losses that are required to be reported in a separate component of stockholders' equity. This study compares seven specific financial attributes between 83 Fortune 500 companies electing a December 31, 1981, compliance and 103 Fortune 500 companies not opting for a 1981 adoption. Univariate t—tests on each attribute indicate the strongest difference between the two groups is in the foreign currency translation gains and losses for 1981. The multivariate Hotelling T2 test simultaneously compared differences in the seven attributes for the two groups. Test results indicate the two groups of companies are different. Since the "yo-yo" effect on earnings was an often cited reason for opposing SFAS 8, differences in the volatility in reported earnings between the two groups for the five-year period covered by SFAS 8 (1976-1980) were examined using three different measures. The overall conclusion was that companies adopting the standard early did not have more volatility in earnings than the other group during the period that SFAS 8 was in effect. Security price reactions to the early adoption were also investigated. Surprisingly, a strong market reaction was indicated. Significant differences between the cumulative average residuals (CARs) for the two groups began two weeks prior to year-end and continued for five months. The CARs for the group that adopted SFAS 52 early generally performed better than expected whereas the residuals for the companies that continued to report under the temporal method were worse than expected.
- Estimating partial group delayZhang, Nien-fan (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1985)Partial group delay is a spectral parameter, which measures the time lag between two time series in a system after the spurious effects of the other series in the system have been eliminated. For weakly-stationary processes, estimators for partial group delay are proposed based on indirect and direct approaches. Conditions for weak consistency and asymptotic normality of the proposed estimators are obtained. Applications to a multiple test of partial group delay are investigated. The time lag interpretation of partial group delay is justified, which provides insight into the nature of linear relationships among weakly-stationary processes. Extensions are made to group delay estimation and partial group delay estimation for non-stationary "oscillatory" processes.
- Partitioning market efficiencies by analyst attention: the case of annual earnings announcementsDempsey, Stephen J. (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1985)This study addresses the empirical question of heterogeneous market efficiency characteristics, specifically as they are attributable to divergent levels of professional securities analyst attention. As a significant group of information intermediaries, analyst institutions conceivably influence, in a profound manner, the efficiency with which security prices respond to new information. Consistent with this notion is the hypothesis that the securities of firms which are neglected in terms of analyst coverage exhibit price inefficiencies relative to their closely followed counterparts. Two market efficiency constructs with respect to annual earnings announcements are examined in this study. Preannouncement information efficiency is guaged by the degree to which security prices appear to lead or anticipate the information content of subsequent public earnings releases. Such price behavior is indicative of the market's ability to acquire and, process interim, signals that are relevant to the determination of proper and timely security valuations. Postannouncement, or semi-strong-form, efficiency is in turn referenced by the relative absence of anomalous "drifting" patterns in postdisclosure returns. The presence of significant drifts is inconsistent with a market that adjusts quickly and unbiasedly to signals that are transmitted publicly. Sample firms taken from the NYSE are ranked into three groups according to their relative following by the professional securities analyst community. Analyst attention is surrogated by the number of investment houses providing annual earnings per share forecasts for companies listed in the Institutional Brokers Estimate System (IBES) computer file. The delineation of the three attention concentration groups' relative efficiency profiles is accomplished by means of two uniquely derived metrics that restate cumulative abnormal returns (CAR's) into an ordered domain of pre- and postannouncement efficiency structures. The CAR's are derived from dailly price data immediately surrounding annual earnings announcement dates for the calendar years ended 1976 through 1982. Owing to the nonnormal distributional properties of the inefficiency metrics, two nonparametric procedures are employed to detect group mean differences. The results overwhelmingly indicate that both pre- and postannouncement efficiency are positively associated with professional analyst attention. Moreover, the detected efficiency differences cannot be attributed to firm size effects or to the extent of the market's forecast error -- two factors that have previously been established in the empirical literature to be associated with event period CAR magnitudes.